MiV Home
Fairfield United Church
November 5, 2006
Last spring I enthusiastically welcomed the debut of the West Coast Consort. This afternoon they were back with a much more ambitious programme. Augmented by four dancers from the Greater Vancouver Historical Performance Ensemble, a choir of twenty-four female voices and two fine soloists, Simon Leung's ensemble aimed to re-create a musical entertainment such as might have been offered by an eighteenth-century nobleman.
Having aimed much higher than they did last spring there was a much greater chance that they would fall a short of what could have been achieved. Perhaps inevitably, then, this performance disappointed in ways that last spring's performance did not. At the same time, Leung is to be commended for his artistic ambition and for the many successful aspects of this performance.
The Consort has experienced some turnover since last spring. Deborah Young has replaced Julian Vitek as the concertmaster. James Hill replaced Peter Smith on harpsichord. Hill also took the organ parts. For some reason, a few more Tourte bows seemed have sneaked back into the ensemble. The ratio of Tourte to baroque bows was roughly one to one. I was disappointed by this apparent retreat from the ideal of a baroque ensemble. I also felt that the Consort had flaws in intonation that I did not notice last spring.
Some things were the same, however. I was disappointed to see that the harpsichord used last March is still above ground. I cannot express my views any more clearly than I did last spring: this instrument should never appear again public. It gives harpsichords a bad name and is an affront to the ears of anyone with the least musical taste. And it is ugly.
As noted above, this performance was imagined as a hypothetical reconstruction of a baroque musical entertainment. I cannot imagine where or when the entertainment offered this afternoon might have taken place. It contained music from three countries and two centuries. We heard chamber music, concerti, organ solos, a liturgical work that would have been heard only in a chapel and excerpts from operas and other works that would have been heard in the theatre. Still, it was full of fine and, in some cases, seldom-heard music.
The performance began with three dances from the prologue to the opera Achille et Polyxène. First performed in 1687, this opera was begun by the great Lully and completed after his death by Pascal Colasse (1649-1709), Lully's secretary and batteur de mesure à l'Opéra de Paris. (When he was described as the batteur, they weren't kidding. He would have beat the time by pounding the stage with a long staff.)
This was the first of several delightful glimpses into the splendors of the Parisian stage during the reign of Louis XIV. The magnificence of the operas produced for the Sun King can scarcely be imagined today. Their production today would be financially prohibitive. Even chances to see this music performed with dancers are relatively rare, which made this afternoon's performance particularly welcome. I do not feel qualified to comment on the dancing beyond saying that the costumes (which changed from dance to dance) were gorgeous and the performances suitably gracious and stately. The audience seemed very pleased by the dancing. We were subsequently treated to excerpts from Lully's Le Triomphe de l'Amour, Amadis, Roland, Le Bourgeois gentilhomme and two works by Campra: L'Europe Gallant and Télémaque.
Other dances included selections from the works of Louis de La Coste (1675 - c. 1750), a choreographed version of Marais's Folie d'Espagne and a Chacoon [i.e., Chaconne] for Harlequin by Le Rousseau.
Other parts of the programme were less innovative. For some reason, Leung found it necessary to perform Pachelbel's Canon in D. Only a striking performance could justify yet another outing for this hoary chestnut. That was not forthcoming. It was taken at a slow tempo, a la Jean-François Paillard (yes, that version). Some of the violinists used a fair bit of vibrato, others none. This is something that performers should sort out before they start performing a piece, particularly when they are performing a canon, the point of which is for the voices to imitate each other.
The other chestnut on the programme was Vivaldi's Autumn Concerto. Last March I was pleased by the Consort's performance of the Spring Concerto. This performance I enjoyed, in the immortal words of Borat, "not so much." The slow movement made the horrors of the harpsichord fully apparent. As for the third movement, the hunters were never going to catch the stag at that pace.
The big set-piece work on the programme was Vivaldi's Gloria. For this work a choir of women's voices (drawn from several ensembles) and two wonderful young soloists joined the Consort. As advertised by Leung, the Gloria does sound particularly good when sung by a SSAA (and not SATB) choir. It is remarkable how often pieces sound best when performed following the instructions and performance practices of a great composer. Go figure.
The choir members turned in good performances but the real treat in this piece was the contribution of the two young soloists, Anna Shill (soprano) and Yael Izkovich (mezzo soprano).
Shill's singing I had heard before and I was expecting a treat. Still, I believe, a teenager, she has a lovely voice, artistry in spades and a delightful stage presence. I confidently predict a successful career. Izkovich was a complete revelation to me. I have no idea how this Israeli musician washed up on our shores for this concert, but that she did is something to celebrate. Older (b. 1978) and more mature than Shill, her voice is more developed but equally lovely. As well, she sings with assurance beyond her years and an excellent appreciation of the baroque style. Izkovich too has every reason to anticipate a successful future. I do not think that the audience displayed all of the enthusiasm that these fine singers deserved.
While speaking of the Gloria I should note that James Hill turned in a good performance on the organ and Karen Whyte shone on cello, particularly when accompanying the first mezzo solo.
The concert was rounded out by two of Bach's arrangements of Vivaldi concerti, performed here on organ by Hill.
I cannot forbear to note that Leung, both in his programme notes and pre-concert remarks, touched on one of my pet peeves. In the notes, he states that in the baroque period, 'Music and dance were still treated as entertainment and artistic values were usually overlooked." In his spoken remarks, Leung implied that eighteenth-century audiences were so inattentive that food fights were likely to break out.
This is a dreadful, but all too common, canard. Yes, people danced and socialised to music in the baroque period, just as they do today. They also sat down and concentrated on music as an object of exclusive aesthetic attention. This is a matter of easily established musicological fact.
Writing in the eighteenth century, Sir John Hawkins noted that, when Handel played an organ prelude prior to a concerto, "silence, the truest applause, succeeded the minute that he addressed himself to the instrument, and that so profound, that it checked respiration, and seemed to control the function of nature, while the magic of his touch kept the attention of hearers awake only to those enchanting sounds to which it gave utterance."
Similarly, in the seventeenth century, Roger North attended a performance by Nicola Matteis and reported that the Italian violinist, 'held the company by the ears with that force and variety for more than an hour together, that there was scarce a whisper in the room tho filled with company."
More examples of this sort could be produced at will. Audiences in the eighteenth century could be every bit as attentive as modern ones. And, in the eighteenth century, one did not have to put up with ringing cell phones and flash photography as the audience did on this occasion.
Although I have identified a few reservations about this concert, readers should be clear that there was much to enjoy this afternoon. The programming was (apart from the Pachelbel and the Autumn Concerto) imaginative, the dancing was greatly enjoyable, the singing of the soloists was terrific and several musicians turned in fine performances. I look forward to future performances by Leung and the Consort. Their next performance is scheduled for around Easter and should be well worth hearing.
MiV HomeLast modified: Mon Nov 6 14:37:03 PST 2006